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I have a document library, in which all of our published documents reside. Everyone has read access to these documents.

In order to have a controlled editing and approval process, I was thinking of setting up a process that could be started by appropriate users. The process would move the document to a working area - a document library which stored all documents which are currently being worked on by users.

So basically I would have 2 document libraries:
Published Documents - this is the latest published version of each document, which everyone has read access to
Working Documents - this stores documents which people are working on at the moment. Once they have finished working on the document, they could start an approval workflow which get the document signed off, and then move the document back to the "Published Documents" library

I was intending to achieve this by creating a K2 Sharepoint Workflow (using K2 Sharepoint Workflow Integration), so that the user can drop down the menu on an item, and then choose "Workflows", and then start the "Edit Document" workflow.

Unfortunately, I have found that in order for someone to start a Sharepoint workflow on a document in a document library, they require edit permissions on the document.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I could approach this to enable anyone who can read the document to start the edit process, without giving them Edit permissions in the "Published Documents" document library??

I am happy to consider any alternative that will get the job done - I am not fussed on whether it uses Sharepoint Workflow Integration, or is fired by an event occurring...

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Here is a non-technical approach that requires an adjustment in the concept.  What if your Working Documents folder contained a copy of all documents, published or draft?  When users want to modify a published document, they go to the Working Document library to initiate the process.  The Working Document library could contain extra metadata columns that indicate the status of the document and who is working on it.  You could even create a Draft view of the library to display only those documents with a Draft status.  Using this approach, the Publish Document library is never touched by anyone except the workflow service account and the Draft library can be used as a dashboard to see the current status of any document.


David


Thanks very much for getting back to me David - this sounds like it might be the best option so far - the only thing I could come up with was having some sort of edit form (aspx or infopath), which allowed users to search for a document, and then let them select the document they want to edit, and start a process from there.

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply!


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